Cost of independent firm vs chain ie Magnet for kitchen

[Eminybob]

We are having our kitchen done. It’ll need the works, including flooring, having a door blocked up and appliances.

I have a guy coming round on Thursday for quotes. He’s a one man band, he does kitchens and bedrooms, and can project manage all the jobs.

He’s been recommended so I would really like to use him, but is it worth getting quotes from Magnet, wickes and the like?
And if I did would I then need to source all the other tradesmen for the other work myself or do they do project management too?

And which is likely to be cheaper?

I have a (flexible) budget of £10k, but I don’t even know if this is realistic for everything I want doing.

I’m a complete novice, any advice would be appreciated.

Magnet kitchens are shit. If he's been recommended, I'd go with the guy

Yeah my friend has a kitchen and 2 bedrooms he has done and they are gorgeous. She says he’s reasonable but her kitchen isn’t comparable to mine and she did flooring separately so can’t really gauge the cost.

It’s always worth getting more than one quote for any job, otherwise how do you ever know if you’re getting value for money?

I have Magnet and it's still going strong after 20 years and the house having been let!

You could look at Magnet supplying but someone else fitting perhaps?

You’ll probably need to source the other trades individually and pm it yourself if you go with Wickes or alike. Not sure if it’s internal or external door but you might need to contact your LA re building regs too

It’s an external door. We have 2 doors at the front of the house, one goes into the hall, the other into the kitchen, I think it was a utility originally then knocked through. Didn’t think about building regs.

It’s the time and effort of projecting managing it that makes me think it’s worth paying a bit more for someone who can do it all for me.

If you work or have young family (ie not a lot of free time) then I’d defo pay the extra to go with your recommended guy. We did similar and he brought together the builder, plumber, electrician, painter etc and got everything finished exactly when he said he would and because it was his reputation on the line he pushed the guys to absolute perfection. He was worth his weight in gold

How much more did you pay Widow than if you had done it yourself?
Do you think that my budget of £10k is realistic? (Medium-large sized kitchen)

Have you looked into Magnet Trade. Joiners have accounts with them and they have similar stuff to Magnet but works out cheaper. Works a bit like Howdens so only Trade people can buy. AFAIK.

I can’t really compare with our work as our building work was more involved (installing steel beams) so that was costly. We bought our kitchen (inc hob and oven) for about 7k from DIY, fridge was another 1k, flooring 1.6k and plumbing, electrics, painting, skips etc were all included in the grand total alongside the builders costs. Worktops, tap, sink was another 4K odd.

I think you should price up what you can from the internet and then see what your recommended guy quotes and see how you feel then

Wren quoted us £7k for units and 'luxury' laminate worktops, (galley kitchen 16 x 9 foot plus utility 6 foot (just 3 units). From DIY kitchens we paid just under £5k without worktops, and upgraded a few of the units from Wren. We sourced silestone locally and bought an oak worktop online for £2,100. Overall we spent just under £14k, including fitting, neff appliances, new flooring and a new boiler (DH is gassafe so no cost there).